New Chairman of the European Executive Forum for Advanced Manufacturing

Now the new Exec­u­tive Forum for Advanced Man­u­fac­tur­ing, EFAM has a chair­man: Dr. Matthias Bölke, Vice Pres­i­dent Strat­e­gy Indus­tri­al Automa­tion at Schnei­der Elec­tric, is tak­ing over the lead­er­ship of the forum launched by the Euro­pean indus­try asso­ci­a­tion Orgal­im with imme­di­ate effect. The aim is to bring togeth­er inter­na­tion­al sup­pli­ers and users of advanced tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions for the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try in a reg­u­lar for­mat to devel­op joint impuls­es for Euro­pean indus­tri­al pol­i­cy. The com­mit­tee, which met for the first time in Decem­ber 2021, also acts as an advi­so­ry body to the Orgal­im Board of Directors.

An expe­ri­enced expert in the fields of indus­tri­al automa­tion and ener­gy man­age­ment, Dr. Matthias Bölke has held var­i­ous man­age­ment posi­tions for many years. In addi­tion to his role as VP Strat­e­gy for the indus­tri­al busi­ness on a glob­al lev­el at tech group Schnei­der Elec­tric, the new chair­man is involved in var­i­ous com­mit­tees and asso­ci­a­tions spe­cial­iz­ing in dig­i­tal­iza­tion top­ics. In a ses­sion at EU Indus­try Days 2022, co-orga­nized by Orgal­im, Dr. Bölke com­ment­ed on the state of the Euro­pean man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try in ear­ly February:

“That Europe is a glob­al leader in auto­mat­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy is undis­put­ed; how­ev­er, this posi­tion is not a fore­gone con­clu­sion. What is need­ed now is the rapid deploy­ment of many new avail­able tech­nolo­gies to increase the degree of dig­i­tal­iza­tion, but also the effi­cien­cy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy. This will secure our cur­rent pole posi­tion in the future.”

Europe needs a digital and sustainable manufacturing industry

“The intro­duc­tion and use of advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies forms an essen­tial pre­req­ui­site for Europe to take a lead­ing role in issues such as dig­i­tal­iza­tion and cli­mate pro­tec­tion in the future. Against this back­ground, I am delight­ed that the Exec­u­tive Forum has appoint­ed Dr. Matthias Bölke as Chair­man. With his exper­tise, indus­try knowl­edge and many years of expe­ri­ence as an exec­u­tive, he brings all the pre­req­ui­sites to sup­port this impor­tant forum in a lead­ing posi­tion. Togeth­er we want to work on shap­ing the dig­i­tal and sus­tain­able future of the Euro­pean man­u­fac­tur­ing industry.”

- Malte Lohan, Director-General

As the spon­sor of EFAM, the inter­na­tion­al indus­try asso­ci­a­tion Orgal­im not only rep­re­sents a large num­ber of Euro­pean com­pa­nies from the mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing, elec­tron­ics and met­al tech­nol­o­gy sec­tors, but is also co-cura­tor of the so-called Task Force 5 of the EU Indus­tri­al Forum. This Task Force 5 has the par­tic­u­lar task of accel­er­at­ing the EU-wide devel­op­ment and use of advanced tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions for the man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try. The main focus here is on the rapid imple­men­ta­tion of a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, which is aimed not least at estab­lish­ing more sus­tain­able and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es. With its work, the Exec­u­tive Forum for Advanced Man­u­fac­tur­ing will sup­port Task Force 5, among others.